Ciccone Youth Biography
More of a good-natured prank than an actual band, Ciccone Youth was a short-lived vehicle in which indie underground noisemakers Sonic Youth further explored their obsession with popular culture. In the mid-'80s, the members of Sonic Youth (especially Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon) made no secret of their fascination with Madonna; they were known to discuss her life and career in interviews, and the album EVOL listed "Madonna, Sean, and Me" as an alternate title for the closing tune "Expressway to Yr. Skull." At the peak of their Madonna frenzy, the band decided to record a tribute single to the Material Girl; on the A-side, Sonic Youth performed a dark, ominous version of "Into the Groove" (dubbed "Into the Groovey") that sounds slow, until samples from Madonna's original recording confirm it's being played at the same tempo as the upbeat original. The flip side featured former Minutemen bassist and fellow Madonna enthusiast Mike Watt on a jacked-up rock version of "Burnin' Up," with former Black Flag leader Greg Ginn contributing a bracingly discordant guitar solo; it was one of Watt's first musical projects following the Minutemen's collapse after the death of D. Boon. Released by Watt's New Alliance label under the name Ciccone Youth (in honor of Madonna's surname), the single became an underground success, and a widespread (but unconfirmed) rumor had it that Madonna herself persuaded Warner Bros. not to take legal action against the record for unauthorized use of her sampled voice. The single's success led to a Ciccone Youth album, The Whitey Album (referring to Sonic Youth's often-threatened intention to record an album in which they covered The Beatles in its entirety), but Watt's participation was limited to his original four-track demo for "Burnin' Up" and the disc featured no new Madonna interpretations from Sonic Youth, though Kim Gordon did offer up an intriguingly strange karaoke version of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love." The rest of the album was for the most part devoted to playful noise experiments, and by the end of 1986, Watt and Sonic Youth had seemingly retired the Ciccone Youth banner; there were no further recordings, and they never performed live using the name. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
Popular Biographies:
Banco de gaia Biography: Inspired to enter the field of electronic music by Britain's acid house explosion of the late '80s, Toby Marks took quite a different spin on electronica with his recordings as Banco de Gaia,...
Kyuss Biography: Hailing from Palm Desert, CA, Kyuss (pronounced "kai-uss") has become something like a heavy metal equivalent to the Velvet Underground. Although they are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the...
Junior boys Biography: A Hamilton, Ontario-based electronic pop group, Junior Boys began as a duo with its duties split between Jeremy Greenspan and Johnny Dark. Influenced by a number of music sectors -- including arty...
Cockney rejects Biography: Inspired by the critically reviled working-class punk of Sham 69, the Cockney Rejects helped give voice to the punk subgenre tagged Oi!, partly thanks to the group's 1980 song "Oi! Oi! Oi!" The...
Hot chocolate Biography: An interracial English funk and soul group, Hot Chocolate scored a pair of huge hits in the '70s but were otherwise more enthusiastic than skilled. Lead singer Erroll Brown, guitarist Harvey Hinsley,...
Ravenous Biography: The politically inclined industrial outfit Ravenous has been delivering its brash take on present society since their inception in 1996. That same year, they released their debut Mass Mental Cruelty...
Intocable Biography: Intocable rose to mass popularity in the late '90s and became arguably the most successful tejano act of their day. Intocable's style of tejano is undeniably norteño in nature, driven by polka...
Apostasy Biography: Sweden's Apostasy was formed in 1994 and performs keyboard-laden symphonic black metal inspired by the likes of Dimmu Borgir and Arcturus. After the sudden death of original singer Stefan Peersen...